WASHINGTON - Working as a Jack in the Box cashier, Marissa Cruz Santos breathed a sigh of relief last year when she qualified for an Obama administration program that defers deportation of young immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children. With high expectations and a freshly minted work permit, Santos, 27, hit the job market, hoping to leverage her new status and a Cal State Fullerton degree into an entry-level office position. But after applying for several jobs near her Riverside home, Santos got only two interviews and no offers.

A 10-year-old student from Noble Avenue Elementary School in North Hills visited the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels last week on a diplomatic mission. Jersey Vargas, a fourth-grader, was about to leave for Rome and a possible visit with Pope Francis, but first she wanted to ask Archbishop Jose H. Gomez for his blessing and his help. Jersey said she hoped the archbishop will "help my Dad out, so he can be with me and my family, and we won't be separated ever again. " Her father has been in custody since September, Jersey told me. She said he "was caught driving without a license, and because he wasn't born in the United States, that also didn't help him out….

WASHINGTON - Under orders by President Obama to enforce immigration laws "more humanely," Homeland Security officials are focusing on at least two major policy changes that would slow the pace of deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. But the White House has tentatively rejected proposals to expand an Obama administration program to allow the parents of young people who were brought to the country illegally to stay. Officials said Friday that the changes under review would effectively stop most deportations of foreigners with no criminal convictions other than immigration violations, and focus enforcement efforts instead mostly at those charged or convicted of felony crimes or who pose more of a threat to public safety.

WASHINGTON - President Obama is directing top immigration officials to review U.S. deportation practices to see whether they can be carried out "more humanely" while still enforcing the laws on the books. In an evening meeting with Latino lawmakers, Obama said he still wanted to push a comprehensive immigration reform package but that, in the meantime, he had asked the head of the Department of Homeland Security to run an "inventory" of the agency's practices. Obama "emphasized his deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement released after the meeting.

NEW YORK - Anderson Cadet arrived at the Varick Street courthouse in an orange jumpsuit, shackled at the wrists, prepared to fight his deportation without an attorney. In immigration court, there is generally no right to free legal counsel. Many immigrants represent themselves. But on this cold February morning, Cadet was greeted by a public defender who took on his case for free. The Haitian immigrant is a client in a yearlong pilot program, believed to be the first of its kind, that provides free legal counsel to low-income people facing deportation.

Luciano Sandoval, a 41-year-old farmworker living in the United States without legal status, went to the Kern County Courthouse in Bakersfield last month to pay a traffic ticket. A few days later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained him as he was going to work and began deportation proceedings. Sandoval, who has six American-born daughters, said the agents told him he was targeted after paying a fine for driving without a license - a red flag for possible undocumented status.

WASHINGTON - With their hopes for broad legislation to overhaul immigration policies all but dead for the year, advocates have turned quickly to a new target: Pushing President Obama to take executive action to ease deportations of immigrants in the country illegally. In a coordinated, aggressive and sharp-elbowed campaign, leaders who stood behind the White House not long ago as the president called immigration reform his top second-term priority are now attacking Obama for not doing enough on his own. Dismissing Obama's insistence that his hands are tied by the law, advocates plan to pile on until he relents -- as he did once before in the run-up to an election.

CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- President Obama told House Democrats on Friday that his executive power to help immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal status is limited and urged them to keep pressing for legislation to overhaul the immigration system. "Don't take your foot off the pedal," the president said in remarks to a closed-door meeting of his Democratic allies, who were gathered for the party's annual issues retreat on the Eastern Shore. Hopes have substantially dimmed for immigration law changes this year after House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio)

WASHINGTON - A former Salvadoran general accused of overseeing the torture and killing of thousands of civilians during a 12-year civil war appealed a U.S. deportation order Thursday on the grounds that his nation's anti-communist campaign was backed and funded by the American government. An attorney for Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who was El Salvador's defense minister and leader of the National Guard in the 1980s, repeatedly cited the U.S. support for his country's right-wing government during its war against leftist guerrillas.

The petition is clear and to the point: "Deport Justin Bieber and revoke his green card. " And now the petition at WhiteHouse.gov, created six days ago, has passed the 100,000-signature mark required to get an official response from the Obama administration. Wednesday morning at 8, the total was at 102,446 signatures. It reads: " We the people of the United States feel that we are being wrongly represented in the world of pop culture. We would like to see the dangerous, reckless, destructive and drug-abusing Justin Bieber deported and his green card revoked.